“Dear Mr. Ruskin,—We have only just read the September number of Fors Clavigera. My husband is the Ned G—— referred to in the letter you quote from E. L. Said he, ‘It (i.e., the letter) is not worth notice.’ I replied, ‘In itself perhaps not; but I have known Mr. Ruskin in his writings many years, and I shall write him to put before him the actual facts, and request him to withdraw these misstatements.’ The whole letter is written on the supposition that Mr. Green is an iron king, or iron lord. No such thing: he is an engineer—quite a different affair; the maker of a patent which is known all over the world as the ‘Fuel Economiser.’ He consequently never had a forge, and is indebted to the use of his intellect and the very clever mechanical genius of his father for their rise in life, and not merely to toiling half-naked Britons, as stated. The picture of the forge, with its foul smoke and sweltering heat and din, is drawn from some other place, and is utterly unlike the real workshops of E. Green and Son—costly, airy, convenient, and erected to ensure the comfort of the workpeople, having a handsome front and lofty interior.

“As to smoke, the whole concern makes no more than, if as much as, an ordinary dwelling-house; while we suffer too much at Heath from the town smoke to add to the dense volumes. We have no whistle—some other place is meant; we were never possessed of a ‘devil,’ American or English, of any sort. Mr. Green derives no pecuniary benefit from Wakefield, and but for the attachment of his father and himself to their birthplace, [[324]]would long ago have conducted his operations in a more central spot.

“Several other grave charges are brought against Mr. Green—one so serious that I am surprised to see it printed: viz., that he rules his people with an iron hand. That may go with the rest of the ‘iron tale.’ Your correspondent is either very ignorant or wilfully false. No such assertion can be for a moment sustained, after inquiry is made among our people; nor by any one in the town could an instance of such be proved.

“As to the Scotch estate, Mr. Green does not possess one.

“The history of Robin the Pedlar is equally a work of E. L.’s imagination, although no false shame as to a humble descent has ever been shown or felt. What! you taunt a man because he and his father have risen above the state in which they were born by use of the intellect God gives them? Fie! What sort of encouragement do you give to the working men to whom you address these letters, when you insinuate that one sprung from the people has no right to dwell in a hall or drive a carriage; and broadly hint he is no gentleman, no scholar, and has nothing to boast of but his money? Come here, and see if Ned G—— is the sort of man you picture; see the refinement visible in his idea of art, and which he has tried to impress on others by his example, and then ask yourself whether you have done well to lend the sanction of your name to decry, as a mere vulgar parvenu, one who has done his best to keep a high standard before him.

“As to living at Heath Hall, I ask, Is it a crime to spend your money in preserving to posterity a beautiful specimen of the house, of the smaller gentry in Queen Elizabeth’s time, which you only enjoy during a few years’ lease? A little longer neglect, and this fine old house would have become a ruin: when we took it, ivy grew inside, and owls made their nests in what are now guest-chambers.

“No squire has lived here for a century and a quarter; and the [[325]]last descendant of the venerated Lady B——, (Dame Mary Bolles, that is,) utterly refused to reside near so dull a town as Wakefield—preferring Bath, then at the height of its glory and Beau Nash’s; even before his time the hereditary squires despised and deserted the lovely place, letting it to any who would take it. Now it is repaired and restored, and well worth a visit even from Mr. Ruskin—who, if he is what I believe him, will withdraw the false imputations which must cause pain to us and surprise to those who know us. That last little stroke about bribery betrays E. L.’s disgust, not at the successful man, but at the Blue Tory. Well! from envy, malice, and all uncharitableness, from evil-speaking and slandering: Good Lord deliver us!

“Yours very truly,
“Mary Green.”

(I make no comments on this letter till the relations of Dame Mary Bolles have had time to read it, and E. L. to reply.)

V. The following account, with which I have pleasure in printing the accompanying acknowledgment of the receipt, contains particulars of the first actual expenditure of St. George’s monies made by me, to the extent of twenty-nine pounds ten shillings, for ten engravings[12] now the property of the Company. The other prints named in the account are bought with my own money, to be given or not given as I think right. The last five engravings—all by Durer—are bought at present for my proposed school at Sheffield, with the Melancholia, which I have already; but if finer impressions of them are some day given me, as is not unlikely, I should of course withdraw these, and substitute the better examples—retaining always the right of being myself the ultimate donor of the two St. Georges, in their finest state, from my own collection. But these must at present remain in Oxford. [[326]]

London, October 5, 1875.

John Ruskin, Esq.

£ s. d.
St. G. 1. Apollo and the Python, by Master of the Die 1 0 0
St.,, G.,, 2. Raglan Castle 3 10 0
St.,, G.,, 3. Solway Moss 4 0 0
St.,, G.,, 4. Hind Head Hill 1 10 0
St.,, G.,, 5, a, b, c. Three impressions of Falls of the Clyde (£2 each) 6 0 0
St.,, G.,, 6. Hindoo Worship 2 0 0
St.,, G.,, 7. Dumblane Abbey 3 10 0
St.,, G.,, 8. Pembury Mill
St.,, G.,, 9. Etching of the Severn and Wye 2 10 0
St.,, G.,, 10. Tenth Plague (of Egypt) 2 0 0
St.,, G.,, 11. Æsacus and Hesperie 3 10 0
29 10 0
(The above Prints sold at an unusually low price, for Mr. Ruskin’s school.)
J. R. 1. Sir John Cust 0 10 0
J.,, R.,, 2. Lady Derby 5 0 0
J.,, R.,, 3, 4. Two Etchings of Æsacus and Hesperie (£4 each) 8 0 0
J.,, R.,, 5, 6. Two Holy Islands (£2 6s. each) 4 12 0
J.,, R.,, 7. Etching of Procris 4 4 0
J.,, R.,, 8. Holy Island 2 6 0
J.,, R.,, 9. The Crypt 4 4 0
J.,, R.,, 10. The Arvernon 8 8 0
J.,, R.,, 11. Raglan Castle 7 0 0
J.,, R.,, 12. Raglan,, Castle,, 6 0 0
J.,, R.,, 13. Raglan,, Castle,, 6 0 0
J.,, R.,, 14. Woman at the Tank 7 17 6
J.,, R.,, 15. Grande Chartreuse 8 8 0
101 19 6
Discount (15 per cent.) 10 1 0[[327]]
St. G. 16. Knight and Death 18 0 0
St.,, G.,, 17. St. George on Horseback 3 10 0
St.,, G.,, 18. St.,, George,, on,, Foot 7 0 0
St.,, G.,, 19. Pilate 2 0 0
St.,, G.,, 20. Caiaphas 3 0 0
£125 8 6

My dear Sir,—It is delightful to do business with you. How I wish that all my customers were imbued with your principles. I enclose the receipt, with best thanks, and am

Yours very sincerely and obliged.
John Ruskin, Esq.

Of course, original accounts, with all other vouchers, will be kept with the Company’s registers at Oxford. I do not think it expedient always to print names; which would look like advertisement.

Respecting the picture by Filippo Lippi, I find more difficulty than I expected. On inquiring of various dealers, I am asked three shillings each for these photographs. But as I on principle never use any artifice in dealing, most tradesmen think me a simpleton, and think it also their first duty, as men of business, to take all the advantage in their power of this my supposed simplicity; these photographs are therefore, I suppose, worth actually, unmounted, about a shilling each; and I believe that eventually, my own assistant, Mr. Ward, will be able to supply them, of good impression, carefully chosen, with due payment for his time and trouble, at eighteenpence each; or mounted, examined by me, and sealed with my seal, for two shillings and sixpence each. I don’t promise this, because it depends upon whether the government at Florence will entertain my request, [[328]]made officially as Slade Professor at Oxford, to have leave to photograph from the picture.